Hazbin Hotel S1 E6 “Welcome to Heaven”: Review
Previous Review: https://medium.com/@roryaphunter/hazbin-hotel-s1-e5-dad-beat-dad-review-7a42701ca3ef
Spoilers. Really, if you haven’t seen the episode and don’t know/haven’t guessed the big reveal and want to go in blind, maybe avoid this review.
Score — 7/10
So, in the interests of being upfront, this is my least favourite episode of Hazbin Hotel so far.
It’s still good, all of these episodes are at least a 7/10, but if you were to ask me which of the 8 episodes of Season One I’m the least enthused about, “Welcome to Heaven” would be it. I think it mainly comes down to the fact that the opening scenes feel clumsy and the Heaven half of the episode doesn’t really get interesting until the end. I’ll explain what I mean in greater detail, but first, to the recapcave!
The plot goeth thusly: Leading on from last episode, Charlie (Erika Henningsen) and Vaggie (Stephanie Beatriz) are off to Heaven to pitch the Hotel to an authority higher than head Exterminator Adam (Alex Brightman). Charlie is excited, Vaggie less so. They end up in a courtroom, with Adam and his right-hand woman Lute (Jessica Vosk) attending, and have to convince the Seraphims, Sera (Patina Miller) and Emily (Shoba Narayan), that a soul can be redeemed, using Angel Dust (Blake Roman), their first client, as their example. The other half of the episode follows Angel as he and his best friend Cherri Bomb (Krystina Alabado) go out for a night on the town, with Husk (Keith David), Nifty (Kimiko Glenn) and Sir Pentious (also Alex Brightman) in tow. On this night out, Angel has to grapple with how he’s changing and how the Hotel has affected him.
Okay, so I mentioned that the opening scenes and most of the stuff in Heaven weighed this episode down, but the half that follows Angel is really strong, so I’ll start with that. “Radio Killed The Video Star” and “Masquerade” established how Angel’s life is made hell by his sadistic boss Valentino (Joel Perez) and also showed that he cared more about his fellow Hotel inhabitants than we thought. If you haven’t been reading these reviews regularly, which let’s be honest is everyone because I upload so infrequently, I’ve been noting how Angel’s attitude to the Hotel has been evolving and he’s slowly becoming more open to the idea of change. This episode, in my opinion, is the turning point. Angel, over the course of this one night, expresses reluctance to get too hammered, prevents Nifty from stealing chlorine, comforts her when she starts to cry, and also protects her from Valentino when the group runs into him at the club. He also emphasises to Cherri Bomb that there’s room for her and his new friends. Yes, he calls the other characters his friends. Our boy has come a long way. It’s these progressions that Charlie uses to argue that the Hotel works, but we’ll get to that in a bit.
Speaking of Cherri Bomb, she’s finally here, after having made a big impression in the pilot. Krystina Alabado is very funny, with a cartoonish Australian accent and a biting energy that makes the character stand out. She represents Angel’s old life, constantly taking shots at redemption and trading barbs with Husk. I like how the episode comes to the conclusion that Angel’s old and new lives can live together, and that Cherri’s eventual encouragement reflects that. This part of the episode is up to Hazbin’s regular standard.
That is more than can be said for the opening few scenes. I don’t know exactly why, but the set-up for this episode feels really rough and inert. I’ve complained about the starts of these episodes lacking energy and cogence, feeling perfunctory and not getting the episode off to the best start. They’re always functional in setting up the story, and this episodes’ scenes are no different, but a lot of the dialogue feels forced, and often lacks the charm of the rest of the writing. In this episode’s case however, that lack of charm somewhat sticks around when we get to Heaven. The scenes again feel quite thin, like they’re trying to rush through and establish these new characters and this new setting, but not really layering the scenes with the series’ typically whip-smart jokes and subtle character moments. The reveal of Vaggie as an angel (if you didn’t know and didn’t want to know, I warned ya at the start. Ya dingus) is a little abrupt, but still effective, and it is a ballsy move, but the dialogue surrounding it feels… off. Vaggie’s interactions with Adam and Lute in this scene should be bristling with hatred and fury, but it just comes across as a little bit stale. Same with Sera’s interactions with the pair, which should be dripping with urgency, just feel a bit limp. With that said, I do really like Sera and Emily, their contrasting personalities work well together, and Emily is just adorable. Also, Adam and Lute are still hateable as ever. Actually, I haven’t properly talked about Lute yet, so here’s my two pence on her. Lute is the scariest antagonist in Season One, more than Adam or the Vees. She’s utterly without mirth, and relentless in her hate and anger, making her arguably more efficient than her boss. It is also worth saying that the song “Welcome to Heaven” is a bop. Still, the first half of the Heaven storyline feels slightly underwhelming.
But then we get to the courtroom, and the episode kicks up a notch as Charlie seeks to prove that redemption is possible to a room full of angels, only one of whom is actually interested in hearing her out. The earlier-revealed detail that only a few select Angels, such as Sera, actually know about the yearly extermination, comes into play here, as Sera, Adam and Lute try to discredit Charlie’s idea even though Angel’s actions over the course of the episode meet Adam’s criteria to get into Heaven that he made up on the spot: “Be selfless, don’t steal, stick it to the man”. The dialogue in these scenes is much more impactful and sharp, with complicated power plays and rising tension as Charlie and Adam spar, and Vaggie tries to keep her head down out of fear Adam will expose her. The clincher comes after Charlie proves Angel meets Adam’s criteria and he smugly asks “Why isn’t he here, then?” But that flips on him when Emily confusedly asks “Yeah, why isn’t he?”, and then as Charlie sees the other angels begin to get confused, she sternly, and with the realisation that the institution she thought she could work with has been talking out of its backside, asks if the angels actually know how someone gets into Heaven. Emily then counters Sera’s attempted shutdown of this questioning by insisting Charlie was right. This leads into the episode’s second song, “You Didn’t Know”.
“You Didn’t Know”, called that because this is where Emily learns about the extermination and Sera’s role in it, and Charlie realises that most of Heaven has been kept in the dark, goes so hard. The singing is fantastic, the lyrics are razor-sharp and impactful, the animation is big and gripping, and Adam’s sadistic reveal of Vaggie’s past to a horrified Charlie leaves its mark. This episode might not have started out great, but it hits its stride by the end.
Even the weakest episode of this season is still pretty damn good. And the next two only get better…
